Nigel Farage hit back at accusations by a Clinton crony that the Russian government “openly fund[s]” “far-right” UKIP. Mr. Farage observed that the negative campaigning from the Clinton camp is “almost the mirror image” of Remain’s ‘Project Fear’ in the lead up to the European Union (EU) referendum.

Speaking to Breitbart London’s Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam on Breitbart News Daily, outgoing UKIP leader Mr. Farage said that the comments made by longtime Hillary Clinton confidante Neera Tanden were “slanderous” and that anyone using the epithet “far right” to describe people who believe in nation-state democracy “have lost the plot”.

Tanden, who served in the White House during both the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations and is president of the Clinton-linked progressive think-tank Center for American Progress, made the comments during an interview for Politico’s “Off Message'” podcast.

The Clinton confidante came out and said that the “Russians are openly funding the far-right groups, from [Britain’s] UKIP to [French political leader] Marine Le Pen”, saying that “there is widespread knowledge among the center-left parties that that is a rising development”. 

Mr. Farage said of Hillary and her “acolytes”: “They have chosen me as a political football in this election campaign” referencing Clinton’s recent rant where she singled out and accused the UKIP MEP of being in bed with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“I’m absolutely thrilled that they’ve done that because it gives me a chance to respond,” he said.

“All I can say to her acolyte is that I have never taken a penny piece from Mr. Putin, so frankly what she is saying is slanderous. There is no other way of putting it.”

Adding: “If anyone stoops to the level of using the epithet ‘far right’ to describe people who believe in nation-state democracy, well clearly they are the ones that have lost the plot, not me.”

When asked by Mr. Kassam whether he anticipates a fully negative election campaign from the Clinton camp, Mr. Farage said that there would be an “all-out assault”, and proceeded to draw parallels between the Democratic campaign and the Remain campaign during Britain’s referendum on membership of the EU:

“If you look at what I said on that platform [with Donald Trump] in Jackson last week I talked about ‘Project Fear’.

“I talked about the negativity that was used by the Remain in the EU campaign in [Britain] which was to tell us that awful things would happen if our side of the argument won, and that all of the protagonists for Leave were bad people – demons, basically.

“I predicted that that is exactly what would happen in the States in this presidential election campaign…It will be an all-out assault on Trump and anyone that is seen to stand with him or around him.

“And we’ll be told that if Trump wins Putin will control America, there’ll be risk of war, there’ll be poverty.

“It’ll be exactly the same game. Almost the mirror image of what we saw during the referendum campaign. And you know what? It didn’t work.”